Loroe
History of Loroe Loroe is a language spoken in the Land of Lóro, one of the biggest regions of the Eastern Lands. Some historians believe Loroe was the fist spoken language to be written down with a precise grammar; unfortunately, we lost a lot of information about early Loroe during the Storming of the Hall of Dusk, during which a lot of old documents were burnt: this is the main reason we are not able to say when it was born. It later became one of the most common languages in the Eastern Lands, due to the important commercial role of the Land of Lóro . The first document that we have, written in Loroe, are prayers graven on the sacred trees in the first temple that were built. We can still see these inscriptions in the northern region of the Durai Lands (which was a region of the Lòro lands before its declaration of independence in 674 P.S.) and inside the oldest forests where people don't go anymore. People used to carve a circle or spiral line around the tree and then, using knives, animal teeth or sharp bones (as Gere Valla described very accurately in his Lights in the forest), draw simple lines (long, short, diagonal) above it: this is the first known attempt to a written form of Loroe language. This way of writing has dominated in the following centuries and is present also today (or at least while I'm writing this book), since in the official documents that line called guide line (which will be drawn in red from this point forward) is still drawn even though knives had been replaced by quills and barks by soft, warm sheets of parchment. The use of the quills onto a softer support has obviously changed the glyphs, too: the uneven and sharp strokes had been replaced by more elegant and curved lines. Classification and Dialects There is a "pure" Loroe language which is the one spoken in Arrah, the capital city of the Land of Lóro, even though there are some differences between the Loroe spoken by rich people and the lower class.Loroe has spread in all the Eastern Lands during the time, due to the central role of the Land of Lóro in commerce and each region has its own version or "dialect": the most important are the northern dialect and that of one of the islands Phonology Alphabet | | | | |} Note: Consonant "s" is pronunced a little retired. Vowels "e" and "o" has two different possible sound: the open and closed one. So "e" can sound either e (closed) and ɛ (open),"o" both o (open) and ɔ (closed): in both cases the latter sound is less used. Long vowels are indicated with ˆ or ¨ : â means aa, ˆà is written as ä is àà. Ortography These are consonants symbols in Loroe. The first line is the translitteration, in the second one you can find the "official" symbol for the letter (those carved in the wood, note the red line which stands to the spiral mentioned before): it is called "official" because is used mostly in official documents. The third line is something like teh coursive writing. In this table you can't find vowels since they are not present in the writtwn Loroe. There is thouh a way to vocalize words which will be explained later. The stress In Loroe stress is not explicitly marked. Before understanding the position of the stress it is useful to define *''Long syllable'', if it contains a group of vowels or a long vowel (note that crasis e.g. ae>à must be considered as a vocalic group) or if teh syllable contains more than two letters and the vowel is followed by a cnsonant *''Short syllable if it is not long. In order to understand where to put the stress, there are few rules to follow: #If the last syllable is long, the stress falls on it. #If the last syllable is short, the stress goeson the second last syllable. Examples: *''za|mat "Some friends" (NOM INDEF). "mat" is a long syllable (3 letters, vowel followed by consonant) so the stress stays on the last: zam'a'''t. *zam|si "Friends'"(GEN PLU). "si" is short so the stress goes up: z'a'msi *shô|mos "Bells" (NOM PLU). "mos" is long, shôm'o's *shôm|se "To bells" (DAT PLU). "se" in short, sh'ô'mse 'Grammar' '''Genders' In Loroe it's possible to find three different genders: male (M), female (F) and INANIMATE (I). * Nouns can be M, F or I. Genders divide all nouns in four declinations: first class, which contains the vast majority of M nouns; the second class, mostly F; the third for class, containing I nouns and the fourth for special and irregular nouns. * Adjectives are represented by a root e.g. das- ''(red), which has no gender. * Verbs: like adjectives, they are represented by a root e.g. ''art- (to go) and during the conjugation we add suffixes which has defined gender. * Articles, Pronouns. Numbers Loroe admits two main numbers singular and plural. Beyond this two there is a third kind of number: the indefinitive. Cases Loroe is both a nominative-accusative language and an ergative-absolutive. So it admits three different cases for Subject, Agent and Object. The use of the ergative-absolutive or the nominative-accusative system will be explained later. 'Definiteness' Loroe hasn't got articles, but it uses particles to give the idea of definiteness and it can be added only to singular or plurals nouns (or verbs). Examples: Singular: A'''-gar'' "the sword", Ka-zam i vat' a-'gara" My friend buys the sword", '' A-ror "The fog". Plural: '''A-''gars'' "the swords", Ka-zam i vat' a-'''gars''a "My friend buys the swords", A'''-rors "The fogs". Note that the stress is on the article when it is present. '''Nouns Classes As said before, there are four class of nouns, due to their gender: M, F, I and (mixed). The final letter of a noun tells us the class it belongs to First class nouns First class nouns are all nouns with a root ending in -r and -m. The vast majority of them are masculine nouns. '-r theme' This kind of nouns never distinguish the plural nominative and ergative. As example it will be used the word gar-'' "sword". '-(V)m theme' In this class the desinence of the plural ergative is not just -s, but -(V)s, where (V) is the vowel of the theme. Nouns with a vowel of the theme which is not o,a,i or e present an exception in the plural nominative and ergative: they loss the final -s since this doesn't create ambiguities (no desinences of the singular contains à,ò,ù). Sometimes teh ergative presents the -s anyway, just to distinguish it from the nominative. The indefinitive never lose the -t because it can create ambiguities with the plural. As example let's see the word ''zam-'' "friend" (the vowel of the theme is "a") Another example is the word ''hem- "dusk" (vowel of teh theme is "e") Another is zàm- "soup" (v.o.t. is "à") There are some exceptions to this scheme. *Some words in ùm- descend from the more ancient form -eum. For this reason the v.o.t. is "e". For example the word lùm- (ancient form leum-) which means fish declinates as Other words of this kind are dhùm- (noise), gùm- (bark), arkùm- (cargo ship), vùm- (grass) *Words whith a long vowel theme. The v.o.t. is the vowel not doubled e.g shôm- (bell) Second class nouns First of all, note that in Loroe the sound "ll" is pronounced as [ k'ɭ ]. Second class nouns are all nouns with a root ending in -l or -ll. '-l theme' As example it will be used the word thel-'' "hay". Also grol- (plum) '-ll theme''' The singular follows the declination of nouns of the I class, while the plural is more similar to the declination of the II class (except for the "l" which is already doubled). Note that in the plural the consonant -l is doubled and followed by the v.o.t., then there are the usual desinences similarily to the I class of nouns. The conspicuos use of vowels in this declension gives origin to aa huge number of crasis between vowels. Thankfully these nouns are only a few. As example it will be used the word mall-'' "stone". 'Third class nouns' First class nouns are '''all' nouns with a root ending in -s. Note: s+h sounds as sh in sh'''ow. As example it will be used the word ''ves-'' "war". ''Fourth class nouns'' This class contains all the irregular nouns, for example nouns in -m which don't follow the I class declination or -l ones which don0t follow the rules of the II class. *-r nouns which describe: fruits, female animals, regions; they are similar to the declination of IIC nouns. Note that plural and indefinitive have the same desinences. As example it will be used the word hâr-'' "lion (se declinato secondo la I classe) / lioness (IIC)". Note that ae in the dative present a crasis: ae>à. 'Preposition There is a huge number of preposition in Loroe, and they are used to create complements. Here are listed some of them (the most important): Examples: * A-zàm na lùmi ''"The soup made with fish"; a-zàm nâ-lùmi "the soup made with (that specific) fish" (nâ is na-a) * ''A-gar fà vessa "The sword (with the aim of) war" * A-hâr na malli "The lion (made) of stone" 'The adjective' 'Pronouns' Personal pronouns (tonic and atonic) Possessive pronouns 'Dimonstrative pronouns' 'Indefinite pronouns' 'Reflexive pronouns' 'Interrogative pronouns' Clitic forms 'The verb'